BOC, a member of The Linde Group, is delighted to announce that the design for the UK’s first Lane Fox REMEO® Respiratory Centre, a partnership between Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust and The Linde Group, was named the ‘Best New Building’ as well as ‘Overall Winner’ at this year’s Architects for Health Design Awards.

Architectural design practice Murphy Philipps was responsible for the design of the centre, a leading model of patient-centred healthcare.

The awards were presented during the European Design Healthcare Congress on Monday 22 June. The Centre is the result of a landmark public-private partnership between Guy’s and St Thomas NHS Foundation Trust, BOC Ltd and REMEO Healthcare Ltd, the latter two being subsidiaries of The Linde Group. It is the first public-private partnership to establish such a service, in line with NHS England’s plans to develop specialist respiratory services.

Commenting on the award, Andrew Harvey, Head of BOC Healthcare and REMEO Healthcare, said: “I am hugely proud that the design for the new Lane Fox REMEO Respiratory Centre has been recognised with these awards. This is great recognition of the hard work and tremendous collaboration between the team at Murphy Philipps and staff from BOC Ltd, REMEO Healthcare Ltd and our partners at Guy’s and St Thomas’ to bring the Lane Fox REMEO Respiratory Centre to fruition. The new centre at Redhill in Surrey is the UK’s first purpose-built weaning and home ventilation centre.”

The design of the new unit, which is situated in the grounds of East Surrey Hospital, near Redhill in Surrey, was shaped by patients and their families in consultation with hospital staff and architects Murphy Philipps. The brief included how best to deliver a positive rehabilitation environment. Suggestions about ward layout, overall design, ability to access the garden areas, and private areas for families to meet together have all been incorporated into the final design.

The new Centre was funded by BOC and run by REMEO Healthcare, which will oversee the staffing of the centre while medical care will continue to be provided by the specialists at Guy’s and St Thomas’. With extended visiting hours and a relaxing and homely environment, the centre will improve outcomes in complex respiratory patients.

By moving patients out of intensive care wards and into a multi-disciplinary specialist unit, the Lane Fox REMEO Respiratory Centre also releases hospital intensive care beds for other acutely ill people. The Centre helps bridge the gap in the provision of this type of specialist service at a tertiary hospital with delivering care more locally.

The ‘Best new building’ category in the Architects for Health Design Awards 2015 recognises an outstanding healthcare building that helps to transform care services, putting the patient experience and staff support at the centre of the project. The Overall Winner category recognises the unit as outstanding. Sponsoring the awards were Carillion and Vinci plc.

The award comes just seven months after the hospital was officially opened by Baroness Martha Lane-Fox, CBE, Chancellor of the Open University and Chair of Go ON UK, the digital skills charity.

Further Lane Fox REMEO Centres are anticipated in other parts of the UK in due course via the franchise model developed between Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust and BOC.